Know the old saying, “if you can’t beat them, join them?” Well, it appears Google has taken that one to heart when it comes to Twitter.

In 2006, Jaiku, a competitor to popular micro blogging service Twitter, launched, only to be purchased in October 2007 by Google when the search giant was looking to compete in the market.  Unfortunately for Google, Twitter was already becoming too big for anyone to have a real shot at beating it in the market, and by January 2009 it was announced that the code for Jaiku would be made available via open source, but no further development would be done on it.

While many rumors have circulated that Google would like to purchase Twitter, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, the founders of the company, have made it very clear that they have no desire to sell the company at this time.  So what is Google to do?  Everyone who is cool is on Twitter, even the British monarchy has opened an account now!  Well, in lieu of purchasing the company, or operating its own successful service, Google has opened over 40 official Twitter accounts to help users get all sorts of news about what the company is up to in all of its different divisions.

The accounts include:

twitter.com/Google – our central account
twitter.com/Blogger – for Blogger fans
twitter.com/GoogleCalendar – user tips & updates
twitter.com/GoogleImages – news, tips, tricks on our visual image search
twitter.com/GoogleNews – latest headlines via Google News
twitter.com/GoogleReader – from our feed reader team
twitter.com/iGoogle – news & notes from Google’s personalized homepage
twitter.com/GoogleStudents – news of interest to students using Google
twitter.com/YouTube – for YouTube fans
twitter.com/YouTubeES – en Espanol
twitter.com/GoogleAtWork – solutions for IT and workplace productivity

Geo-related
twitter.com/SketchUp – Google SketchUp news
twitter.com/3DWH – SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse
twitter.com/Modelyourtown – 3D modeling to build your favorite places
twitter.com/EarthOutreach – Earth & Maps tools for nonprofits & orgs
twitter.com/GoogleMaps – uses, tips, mashups
twitter.com/GoogleSkyMap -Android app for the night sky

Ads-related
twitter.com/AdSense – for online publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsHelper – looking out for AdWords questions and tech issues
twitter.com/AdWordsProSarah – Google Guide for AdWords Help Forum
twitter.com/GoogleAnalytics – insights for website effectiveness
twitter.com/GoogleAdBuilder – re building display ads
twitter.com/GoogleRetail – for retail advertisers
twitter.com/TechnologyUK – for U.K. tech advertisers
twitter.com/InsideAdWordsDE – for German AdWords customers
twitter.com/GoogleAgencyDE – for German ad agencies
twitter.com/AdSensePT – info for Portuguese-language publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsRussia – AdWords news & tips in Russian
twitter.com/DentroDeAdWords – Spanish updates from the Inside AdWords blog
twitter.com/AdWordsAPI – AdWords API tips

Developer & technical
twitter.com/GoogleResearch – from our research scientists
twitter.com/GoogleWMC – Google Webmaster Central
twitter.com/GoogleCode – latest updates for Google developer products
twitter.com/GoogleData – Data APIs provide a standard protocol for reading and writing web data
twitter.com/app_engine – web apps run on Google infrastructure
twitter.com/DataLiberation – our initiative for complete import/export of all data
twitter.com/GoogleMapsAPI – about using Google Maps embedded in websites
twitter.com/GoogleIO – Google’s largest annual developer event

Culture, People
twitter.com/googletalks – notes from our @Google speaker series
twitter.com/googlejobs – the voice of Google recruiters

Country or Region
twitter.com/googlearabia – news from the Google Arabia Blog
twitter.com/googledownunder – Google activities in Australia & New Zealand
twitter.com/GoogleDE – Google in Germany
twitter.com/GoogleLatAm – Latin America (en Espanol)
twitter.com/GooglePolicyIt – Notes on Google policy issues in Italy

Again, “if you can’t beat them, join them” seems to be the mantra here, and join them they did in a big way.

Related:

Entry was posted on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 2:59 pm under Google, Social Media.

Read more entries by Sean P. Aune.
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